“I have spoken to Robert Golob several times, and he has also come for coffee at my place several times – I’m sure some departments know that,” the UEFA President, Aleksander Čeferin, who has known Golob since before he became the Prime Minister, said in an interview on POP TV in the spring. Čeferin also said that he sometimes shares his opinion with Golob and that he likes the fact that Golob does not think he knows everything. Čeferin probably had the feeling that he would be able to whisper some advice to Golob in the future, too – but these plans were likely spoiled by Golob’s unofficial advisor, Miloš Njegoslav Milović, who is in conflict with Čeferin. The former accused the latter of having collected more than 300,000 euros in commissions for brokering a deal with a state-owned company.
We have previously already written about Miloš Njegoslav Milović, the former member of special police forces, security chief of the late Janez Drnovšek and confidant of Aleksander Čeferin and Zoran Janković. Namely, a few years ago, Milović found himself in a criminal case related to the Kočevje railway line reconstruction project, together with the former director of the railway construction company (Slovenian Railways – The Railway Construction Company, hereinafter referred to as SŽ – ŽGP), Leon Kostiov, and Nihad Bešić, the owner of the now-defunct company NB Inženiring, after which he was accused of destroying and falsifying official documents in the aforementioned proceedings. Documents have appeared in public in which Milović accuses Čeferin of having obtained more than 300 thousand euros in cash for a fictitious deal between SŽ – ŽGP and NB Inženiring, as a reward for successfully mediating with the National Review Commission for Reviewing Public Procurement Award Procedures on one of the deals carried out by the Slovenian Railways subsidiary, SŽ – ŽGP.
In a lengthy 11-page defence, Milović explained all the intrigues involving Čeferin and the prosecutor and the Slovenian Football Association’s disciplinary judge, Boštjan Jeglič. Milović allegedly had evidence for all of his claims (e-mails, notarised statements, official notes at the National Bureau of Investigations, recordings of conversations, and so on). However, Kostiov and Bešić negotiated with the prosecutor’s office and received only 480 hours of community service as their punishment. Milović was acquitted twice, but Jeglič changed the indictment four times, and it looked like Milović would end up behind bars as a sacrificial lamb. So, the prosecution claimed that almost 400,000 euros had disappeared in a sham deal and that the money had been split between three people – but Milović claimed that all the money had gone to Čeferin, which Čeferin, of course, denied. On the 22nd of January 2021, in his closing speech as a defendant in the retrial, Milović blamed everything on the “masters of the deal” and stressed that he was not the perpetrator in this case, but the victim.
“I am glad that I have finally come to the realisation that the main players in this case were, in fact, my former employers at the Čeferin Law Firm,” Milović said in his closing remarks, continuing that he believes that they were able to influence the prosecutor, Nada Drobne Popovič, as well as Kostiov’s defending council and Bešič’s defending council with their power and their positions.
“Based on such a limited review, I cannot assess whether the law firm Čeferin was involved and if any of the three convicted defendants are actually guilty, but it is beyond the slightest doubt that the case smells like a rotten egg, that there were no “clean deals” here,” commented the former judge Zvjezdan Radonjić. We recommend you read this excellent summary of the case, which is available on the web portal Prava.si.
Čeferin and Golob’s friendship cools – an affair of epic proportions
We can therefore conclude that the friendly ties between Prime Minister Robert Golob and Aleksander Čeferin have cooled considerably, and it is quite likely that Čeferin resents Golob at least a little for working with his former confidant Milović, who subsequently betrayed him in court. It is interesting that Tanja Fajon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, did not speak up in the latest affair with the political pressure on the police and the resignation of Interior Minister Tatjana Bobnar – given that she was romantically watching the sunset with Milović on a boat not long ago, one would have expected her to have a word to say in his defence. The mayor of Ljubljana, Zoran Janković, a family friend of Milović’s who is also said to have used him for certain pressures or services (for example, with Tritonis and Rog), also wisely remained silent.
In the past, Milovič has been linked by some media to the List of Marjan Šarec (Lista Marjana Šarca – LMŠ) party – which could turn out to be true, as Marjan Šarec recently spoke up on Facebook, in relation to what is going on. Among other things, he stressed that it is clear that not every instruction is political pressure and that it is nonsense to compare the current developments with the actions of the previous government. As you know, in a free society, political pressures are just guidelines. He praised his team for protecting him – and yet he also mentioned that he had been assigned a person at the beginning who did not really know “how to get to the National Assembly, let alone anywhere else.” He attributed this to his feeling that this person’s superiors at the Security and Protection Centre are sometimes not really aware of the importance of their role. Between the lines, he therefore justified Milović’s post-meeting behaviour and his interference in the proposals of the Acting Director-General of the Police, Boštjan Lindav. Among other things, Milović confronted Lindav with how the protection of the Prime Minister should be carried out, although Lindav did not agree with the proposed method.
Sara Kovač
